29 November 2005

I’m pleased with the way it has developed, considering I had no idea with what the possibilities were when I started.I have taken advice from others and tried to add some structure to it and post more frequently on film related ‘stuff’, for want of a better word. A few other sites are now linking to mine which is good and I have figured out how to link to them too.

The best feedback I have received seems to be on the weekend ‘Dream double bill’ series and going forward I hope to develop more themes.

Thanks to my regular visitors for encouragement and ideas. My very first post was, when I was dipping my toe into the so called ‘Blogosphere’ on ‘Europa ‘51’. So I thought I’d revisit that theme and although the DVD is not available in US or UK it is however available in Europe, this copy I picked up in Spain back in April.

27 November 2005

This weekend’s double bill shows us science fiction nouvelle vague style. First up Francios Truffaut gives us Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ followed by Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Alphaville’. What’s great about these films is that they use virtually no special effects and sets prefering current locations to create greatly atmospheric and futuristic looking films that still look great today.

26 November 2005

19 November 2005

In last week’s Time Out (London) Dave Calhoun wrote in defence of The London Film Festival. Interesting to note and something I completely missed in the programme was a screening of ‘The Passenger’ (aka ‘Profession: Reporter). The National Film Theatre earlier this year had a complete Antonioni retrospective, the only film they didn’t show was this one. Apparently as I had noted on this blog at the time was because Antonioni had to be present at any screening and frail as he is he’d already come to London for the opening of the festival and could not come back for ‘The Passenger’.

Whereas Jack Nicholson’s character David Locke adopts the identity of Robertson through his death early on in ‘The Passenger’ Alain Delon’s Tom Ripley murders Maurice Ronet’s Philip Greenleaf on board his yacht.

‘The Passenger’ tells the story of Locke running from all elements of his former life including his wife; ‘Plein Soleil’ gives us on screen for the first time the psychopath Ripley taking on the love, wealth and trappings of his victim.

06 November 2005

It occurred to me that there were some similarities between 'Harold and Maude' and 'Rushmore' ; Max and Harold both have relationships with older women and both have over active imaginations.Oh, and both films have Cat Stevens on their respective soundtracks.

I think this would make an excellent double bill, forget putting 2 Wes Anderson films together, this is his best film. I personally believe that both 'The Royal Tenenbaums' and 'The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou' have been no where near as good as 'Rushmore'.